2 Chronicles 15:1 - Exposition

The Spirit of God came. For "came," read the literal Hebrew "was," as also in our 2 Chronicles 20:14 , where instead of "God" ( אְלֶהִים ), we find " the Lord " ( יְהֹוָה ) . In our 2 Chronicles 24:20 , we have again "God," with the verb "clothed" ( לָבְשָׁה ). The grand original of the expression is, of course, found in Genesis 1:2 , where the name is "God." Compare Pharaoh's question in Genesis 41:38 ; Exodus 31:3 ; Exodus 35:31 ; Numbers 24:2 ; 3:1 ; 6:34 (the verb "clothed" is used in this last); five other times in Judges we have the Spirit of the Lord; in Samuel six times, and "the Spirit of God" another six times; in Kings, three times "the Spirit of the Lord." These passages exhibit incontestably the function, and the manifold function, of the Spirit! Azariah the son of Oded. The Vulgate and Alexandrian Septuagint read here simply Oded; and Movers has suggested that "Oded the son of Azariah" is the correct reading for what now stands in the text; these are contrivances to meet the difficulty which the eighth verse occasions, and they are not so simple certainly as the proposal of Keil and Bertheau (following the Arabic Version) to omit altogether from verse 8 the repetition of the name of the prophet, under the plea that the words, "of Oded the prophet," may so conceivably be owing to a copyist's meddlesome marginal reminiscence of verse 1. It would have been, perhaps, a yet simpler method of overcoming the difficulty to account that the words, "Azariah the son of," had through a copy error slipped out of the text, except that the previous word, "the prophecy," is not in the construct state, and this favours Keil and Bertheau's suggestion (see our 2 Chronicles 9:29 ), or rather the suggestion of the Arabic Version, which before them omits the words, "of Oded the prophet." The Vatican Septuagint has the readings in beth verses as Englished in the Authorized Version. Some think Oded may be one with Iddo of 2 Chronicles 9:29 ; 2 Chronicles 12:15 ; 2 Chronicles 13:22 ; pointing out that the Hebrew characters would permit it, if we suppose a vav added to the name Oded. This conjectural attempt to give this Prophet Azariah for son to Iddo seems to gain no great point. Of this Azariah nothing else is known; he is described as "son of Oded" probably to distinguish him from Azariah the high priest, son of Johanan (see Dr. Smith's ' Bible Dictionary,' 1.142, second column, 3). (For the rest on this subject, see note on verse 8.)